Hereafter
by BizarreSerenity
Summary: "Bane was a ruin of a man, and for all of his power, his strength, he was nothing without the other half of his soul. He had vowed himself to death and back to Talia Al Ghul, and there he was, dead. Dead and unable to fulfill his vow." Balia, BanexTalia. Rated M.


One moment he had his hands wrapped around Bruce Wayne's throat, pain falling to a dull stabbing in the back of his mind as the steady hiss of morphine flowed back into his veins. He could feel the muscles of the other man's throat contort, skin beneath his hands blackening into a sickly bruise before his eyes.

_You may have defiled her with your touch, but what is that worth now, with your life in my hands? _

Yes, as he began to kill Bruce Wayne, Bane's only thoughts were of _Talia_, Talia and her precious revenge, the feel of her caress, her fingertips brushing against the steel cage of his mask. Her eyes were filled with longing, but also with a peace that the two of them had promised each other the day of Ra's Al Ghul's murder.

One moment, Bane was basking in the last moments before the fire would truly rise, savoring the last breath Bruce would ever breathe, hissing out through his constricted, half-crushed airway.

And then the next, he simply _wasn't._

There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

It was as if everything had vanished for a long few moments, sunk into the blackest night he had ever been thrown in. It was darker than the black of The Pit, but the sinister air and the stone that had always reeked of blood were not present.

_Talia?_

Even as he recalled the last moments of his death, Bane's thoughts turned to her, his reason for living, the child that had been born in hell.

Loud, popping, crackling. That had been ammunition from some sort of cannon device. He did not remember pain, but he could see the rubble for a moment in his mind's eye, his broken, bleeding body crushed into the stone supports of the building. Smears of red splashed around the heap that had once been the strongest man in a mask ever known, eyes closed forever to the world.

_Talia._

Death did not matter. Life did not matter. What mattered was serving _her,_ keeping _her_ safe. And where was she? Was she here, in the dark? Bane had known darkness since his youth. He had never been lost in it, never been unable to see. But this darkness was thick, warm, like an embrace.

There was no fear, there.

No pain, no blood, no screaming of forgotten prisoners in a thousand languages.

If not The Pit, then where?

And then there was light, a blinding, pure light, and oh god he was on his knees, _help me God, _he could not see, could not breathe, could not move.

Bane fell to his knees, blinded.

_**The concrete was rough beneath his hands, which, though calloused and hardened by years of hard not-so-honest labor, were slipping. How many men had made the climb? **_

_**Too many to count.**_

_**How many had truly RISEN?**_

_**None. **_

_**And yet there he was, scaling the ledges, his heart hammering in his chest, the rope tight like a vice around his waist. It was rough, stained dark and oily in places from the blood of more than a hundred men who had failed.**_

_**But no longer.**_

_**He hoisted himself up on the ledge, chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. The sunlight was hot on his shorn scalp, like liquid fire.**_

_**He saw the other ledge, a distance away, waiting.**_

_**The chanting was loud in his ears, coarse and terrible like a choir of screaming demons. Before he could lose his nerve Bane jumped, reaching with outstretched hands.**_

_**Failure.**_

"_**MAMA!"**_

_**He had the child, held fast to his chest even as she fought him tooth and nail, scratching, biting, beating at him with her tiny fists. The screams of her mother were becoming softer now, ragged with sobs.  
There was nothing Bane could do.**_

_**The prisoners had her. There were simply too many for him to take on.**_

_**He could only save the child.**_

_**They had hidden her sex from birth. Talia, her mother called her. Tiny little Talia with her eyes like the sky, heavy lidded and filled with light. It was only a matter of time before the prisoners caught on, before the little girl would grow into her womanly shape and be killed just as her mother had.**_

_**Yet he had risked his life for her, taken her into his arms even as she fought him. **_

"_**MAMA!"**_

_**Why had he taken her?**_

_**He loved her.**_

_**She was the only scrap of innocence left, an angel bound in human form. Her voice was clear, musical, her laughter joyful. When she smiled at him he felt himself smile, felt the glow of her sink inside himself and grow. **_

_**She slept with him, curled into his chest like a little bird bedding down in its nest for the night, her head tucked into her arms. She was his Dove, fine boned and lovely, soft spoken and so very beautiful.**_

_**He loved her with every part of his soul.**_

_**She Rose, and he sank down, down, drawn into the arms of the prisoners with their knives and clubs, rioting even through their cheerful cries, screams of RISE RISE RISE.**_

"_**Goodbye."**_

_**His whisper reached her, and he saw such sadness in those eyes, such guilt that his heart ached to see it.**_

_**The pain was nothing.**_

_**They ripped his face to shreds, stomped on his back, torn his limbs asunder, and he felt nothing. Nothing was more important than watching her Rise, escape from the hell she had been born in. Nothing was as beautiful as her lithe form bathed in light, arms outstretched like a bird.**_

_**Dove.**_

_**His little one.**_

_**Saved at last.**_

"_**What have they done to you, my friend?"**_

_**Her whisper was filled with horror, but he could not feel it, no, not past the pain that welled in his very core. He managed a smile despite the ruin that was his mouth, felt scars crack open and bleed, fresh pain shooting down his spine as she took his hand, ran soft fingertips over his bandaged cheeks.**_

_**She had come for him at last. His Dove had finally grown her wings, her flight feathers. Through dazed eyes he managed to take in her more womanly shape, the twist of long, dark curls at her nape.**_

_**And those eyes; Angel's eyes, he had always called them.**_

_**Blue as the sky.**_

_**Blue as sapphires.**_

_**Blue as the true depths of the ocean.**_

"_**You came."**_

_**Her arms were around him even as her father's men moved him, screaming, onto a stretcher. He could faintly recognize the roar of a helicopter above them, whipping sand and grit into the air, but he forced his words out. He wanted to hear her voice again before he died, finally, after so many years of desperately holding on.**_

"_**Always." Her voice was fierce, raised to a yell over the screaming of the chopper. "Never again, Bane. We will never be parted!"**_

_**She had been wrong, but it hadn't been her fault.**_

_**Talia had been LIVID the night Ra's Al Ghul had sent him out on his first mission, a month long assassination and recovery assignment that although easy enough, angered him. Her father had been working hard to pry them apart, to sever the bond that had grown through all those years together in hell.**_

_**No matter how long she raged, Ra's Al Ghul would hear nothing of her demands.**_

_**They were not to be trained as a fighting pair.**_

_**They were not to spar together.**_

_**They were not to be together at every moment of the day.**_

_**Talia, ever the loyal daughter, did everything her father asked of her save for what he wanted the most. She did not cling stubbornly to Bane; no, she didn't need to. They were bonded far beyond what her father understood. **_

_**They would never be truly parted.**_

_**When he was excommunicated, he did not hear from her for months.**_

_**He did not turn to anger, or to hate. No, those were emotions for a lesser man, a man in no possession of such a bond, of such skills and intelligence. He knew Talia would find him when the time was right, and he plotted a course for the mountains. He needed men, strength, money. Shelter and ammunition, mercenaries for now. **_

_**Fuel for the fire he and Talia would undoubtedly start.**_

_**She writhed like a mad thing beneath him, teeth fastened in his shoulder. He loved the sting of her bites, bore her wounds like battle scars over the curve of his neck, shoulders, his upper back. Her claw-marks were there, pricks of red where she had dug her nails in and HELD.**_

_**Still, Bane continued his relentless pace, feeling her shake and quiver around him.**_

_**The wind and snow howled like a banshee outside the thick walls of their stone shelter, rattling the glass panes of their boarded up windows. The cold was left far behind, but the sound of it was still there, protesting, screeching.**_

_**Talia's legs fastened tightly around his back, hugging the broad, muscled expanse of bitten-and-scratched flesh, and her lips parted.**_

"_**Bane!"**_

_**She keened his name as she came, shuddering around him, holding tight, and he couldn't help but follow her decent. They clung to each other like drowning victims, all tight grips and gasping mouths, stuttering hearts and sweat slicked skin.**_

"_**Bane."**_

_**Her whisper was worship, devotion, as HE were the God, and she the servant. He had pledged himself to her years and years ago, yet she would kneel before him. Present herself to the monster of The Pit as if he were worthy.**_

_**His Little One, his Dove, his Light.**_

_**Talia was EVERYTHING.**_

White.

Stark, clean white. Nothing but miles and miles of colorless surface. The fire faded from his eyes, the dark that had embraced him for eons fading away until there was nothing but the ghost of her voice in his ears, sluggish with sleep, with adoration.

_TALIA._

He rose, pushing himself up where he had fallen on his knees.

He was dead.

Bane knew this, now that his life had been brought before his eyes, the parts that had mattered.

But this place, with it's stark pureness, was _hell?_

Bane did not understand, and looked to his hands. White silk, as pure as his surroundings, draped his body. He dragged in a breath, shuddering, unbelieving.

The metallic rasp, the taste in his mouth, the tightness at his skull.

_Gone._

Trembling fingers poked and prodded, felt healed, whole skin.

His lips were soft, full, proud.

High cheekbones, smooth skin, a nose.

And yet it all meant nothing without _her._

Without Talia, he felt damaged, as if he still wore the mask, still bore the scars, still felt the morphine swim through his veins like chips of numbing ice and drugs, screaming through his nervous system. It was as if something had been taken from him, ripped away.

He wished he could tear the new skin asunder, if it meant being at her side, again.

Bane was a ruin of a man, and for all of his power, his strength, he was nothing without the other half of his soul. He had vowed himself to death and back to Talia Al Ghul, and there he was, dead.

Dead and unable to fulfill his vow.

"Take it back."

He addressed everything in the whiteness and nothing, the keeper of all things pure and white, of peace, life, and light. He knelt before the power of that place, and on his knees, he begged.

"Take it back, and give me to her." Bane rasped, head tilted skyward, dark eyes boring into the white nothingness. "For I am not complete without Talia Al Ghul. I will bear the scars and pain for her. I will bear the world's suffering for my crimes, but you will give me to her."

He breathed.

And there was silence.

Not a single reply, a sign.

Nothing.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to rage. He wanted to crush skulls in his hands, break spines over his knees, squeeze the life from throats and pluck the eyes from countless men.

"Bane?"

_Talia!_

Yes, that voice, he knew that voice, that voice which had brought him down from fury countless times, tiny hands soothing his damaged cheeks, fingertips tracing the scarred remnants of his lips. Yes, he knew that scent of Jasmine oil, the flowery perfume of her hair, the coolness of her breath.

_Talia._

God, she was beautiful, so beautiful.

She was swept into the strong cradle of his arms and he barely noticed the sapphire silk that swathed her body, the dress of her mother's people, draped over her dark, slender body. She was lean with the muscle she had built up over the years as an initiate, the scar at her back just as rough. Her hair was long, loose, falling to her waist in satin curls.

_TaliaTaliaTalia._

They were dead, they were dead, but they were together.

"Never again." Her voice was a hoarse whisper, thick with tears. "I swore to you, Bane."

_Talia._

What did it matter? They had been parted for far longer, through spans of months and years as Talia became the slow knife, and he the instrument of Gotham's destruction, Its reckoning. They had endured the separation, yet she shed tears over mere minutes.

Had it been minutes?

Or perhaps years, thousands of them?

He could not remember.

"I used you for my own ends." She continued, her musical voice rising into a sob filled with absolute sorrow, of agony and shame. "You, who raised me, and loved me. I left you to die alone so that I could exact my revenge. I do not deserve you. I do not deserve your love."

Talia was limp in his arms, a shivering mess of tears.

Yet Bane did not feel used.

He had not felt alone when he died; no, Talia had been there with him, in his thoughts. She had _always_ been there, never left.

Yet she begged his forgiveness.

_Talia._

It was then that he understood, as she pressed her palms over her flat plane of her stomach through the swaths of blue silk, her face twisted into a wretched, tear stained grimace.

"You are forgiven."

Bane dragged her wrists away, pinned her tightly to him, arms wrapped around her body. Her heart beat was fierce against his, fast, so fast. He could not think, only knew the feel of her in his arms, the scent of her hair.

They had both made mistakes. There were wrongs that would never be undone, lives that could never be given back, but there they were in the pureness, together.

Everything was right again.

"Mama! Papa!"

Talia froze against him, her heart beating in a violent tattoo, shivering, eyes tightly shut. He could feel her disbelief at the silvery voice that sounded behind him, so like hers save for its smoother quality, its childlike joy.

"_Kata."_

Light, Bane thought, was the perfect name for their daughter. Talia had named her before their deaths, had known, if quite briefly, before their demise. Yet Kata bore none of their suffering, none of their sin.

Bane took his daughter into his arms for the first time, and felt his heart soar at the sound of her giggle, at the soft feel of her skin and the tickle of her dark curls, so like her mother's that it amazed him.

Yet she had her father's eyes, _his eyes,_ dark, bistre, laughing eyes.

The three walked hand-in-hand through the light, leaving behind them the forgotten wreckage of cities, of dead warlords, an exiled coven of assassins and a mask that had been not a cage, but a shield.


End file.
